Connecticut
CT alcohol and drug counselor sentenced for submitting hundreds of fraudulent Medicaid claims
![CT alcohol and drug counselor sentenced for submitting hundreds of fraudulent Medicaid claims](https://www.courant.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/0530-bus-l-gavel-1-42.jpg?w=900&h=587)
A New Haven alcohol and drug counselor has been sentenced to a year in prison for submitting hundreds of Medicaid claims for services that were never delivered using identification numbers of numerous individuals without their knowledge to fraudulently receive more than $100,000.
Ethel Bethea, 61, was handed down the sentence Thursday in Hartford Superior Court, where Judge David P. Gold ordered that she serve five years of probation once she is released from prison, according to the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice.
While on probation, a violation would expose Bethea to an additional six years behind bars, Gold ordered.
Criminal justice officials said Gold also ordered her to pay $38,000 of restitution by Monday, with the remaining $63,408 to be paid while she serves probation. In total, she has been ordered to pay $101,408 of restitution .
Bethea was also ordered not to act as a Medicaid provider or provide services to any Medicaid recipient, criminal justice officials said.
Prior to sentencing, Bethea pleaded guilty under the Alford doctrine to first-degree larceny by defrauding a public community, health insurance fraud and third-degree identity theft.
By being found guilty of a program-related felony, judicial officials said she is “also subject to mandatory exclusion as a health care provider to certain federally funded health programs pursuant to federal and state laws and regulations.”
“Medicaid is a government program that provides health coverage to low-income, disabled, and elderly individuals, and is financed by both the federal and state governments,” the Division of Criminal Justice said in a news release.
In September 2018, Bethea was approved by the Connecticut Department of Social Services to be a Connecticut Medical Assistance Provider, official said. The type of services Bethea could provide were as a Behavioral Health Clinician with a specialty as a Licensed Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor. She operated her own business, Ethel Bethea Counseling.
Medicaid Fraud Control Unit Inspectors determined that between September 2018 and October 2019, Bethea submitted hundreds of claims for services she claimed to have provided that were not delivered. Bethea used the Medicaid identification numbers of numerous individuals “without their consent or knowledge” in order to submit the fraudulent claims and obtain $101,408 “for these false billings,” judicial officials said.
Additionally, Bethea claimed to have no income and enrolled as a Medicaid recipient, receiving personal medical services paid for by Medicaid, officials said.
The investigation was led by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit in the Office of the Chief State’s Attorney, with the assistance of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Connecticut Attorney General’s Office.
Anyone with knowledge of suspected fraud or abuse in the public healthcare system is asked to contact the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit at the Office of the Chief State’s Attorney at 860-258-5986.
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Connecticut
Kevin Rennie: Connecticut Bar Association is familiar with silence at crucial moments
![Kevin Rennie: Connecticut Bar Association is familiar with silence at crucial moments](https://www.courant.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/GettyImages-2154735055.jpg?w=1024&h=682)
Watch your mouth. That was the message from the Connecticut Bar Association’s three top leaders to the organization’s thousands of members, of which I’m one. The June 13 statement was prompted by perpetually aggrieved Donald Trump supporters hurling abuse at prosecutors, jurors and Judge Juan Merchan after the former president’s conviction this month on 34 counts of violating New York law through a 2016 hush money scheme.
The CBA officers, Maggie Castinado, James T. Shearin and Emily A. Gianquinto, condemned but did not name public officials who issued statements calling the trial a sham, hoax, and rigged; abused Judge Merchan as corrupt and unethical; and claimed the jury was partisan and in the bag for guilty verdicts from the start.
The statement excoriated social media posts seeking to breach the confidentiality of the jurors’ identity. What it did not allege is that any Connecticut lawyers were participating in these assaults on the rule of law. Near its conclusion, the trio’s homily got to the point. “It is up to us, as lawyers,” they wrote, “to defend the courts and our judges. As individuals, and as an Association, we cannot let the charged political climate in which we live dismantle the third branch of government. To remain silent renders us complicit in that effort.”
And then U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a lawyer, had to go and spoil it all three days later by unleashing the same type of hyperbole. He called the Supreme Court “brazenly corrupt and brazenly political” on CNN. Murphy added that Justice Clarence Thomas is “just a grift,” while Justice Samuel Alito is an open political partisan.
As of Friday, the civility umpires at the CBA had issued no statement chiding Murphy.
The CBA is familiar with silence at crucial moments. Six years ago, a mob of antisemites targeted the renomination of Judge Jane Emons to the Superior Court. Judge Emons was the target of appalling rhetoric. The CBA released no thunderbolts as the House of Representatives refused to vote on her renomination, forcing her off the bench.
A few years ago, I wrote about Alice Bruno, a Connecticut judge who failed to show up for work for two years while continuing to receive her salary and benefits. Emails showed plenty of people knew that Judge Bruno had been missing in action, but they remained silent. Bruno’s fate was decided in a secret proceeding when she was granted a disability pension that currently pays her more than $5,000 every two weeks. She worked, often erratically, as a Superior Court judge for only four years before she stopped showing up in 2019.
Before becoming a judge, Bruno did an 18-month stint as executive director of the Connecticut Bar Association. It remained silent throughout the Bruno saga, which undermined the public’s confidence in the judiciary.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal published a sensational investigation into the appalling saga of a federal bankruptcy judge and his personal relationship with lawyer Elizabeth Freeman, who had been his law partner and clerk in Houston. One of the nation’s biggest law firms, Kirkland & Ellis, brought in Freeman to work with it on cases before her boyfriend, Judge David R. Jones.
An anonymous letter lit the fuse on exposing the shocking conflicts at work in the nation’s busiest bankruptcy court. Michael Van Deelan, a small investor in a firm that filed for bankruptcy in the Houston court, believed he had not been treated fairly in the shakeout of the company. Van Deelan received a copy of the letter and filed it with the court in an attempt to have Jones disqualified from his case. Van Deelan’s motion was denied and the letter was sealed from public view, the Journal reported.
Van Deelan discovered through an internet search that Jones and Freeman owned a house together since 2017. Plenty of lawyers appear to have known that the two were engaged in a romantic relationship. To expose it would have ended a sweet arrangement that was a bonanza for the firms and their bankruptcy clients who brought Freeman in on their cases.
No one said a word. Only Van Deelan, a 74-year-old retired math teacher, brought justice where corruption ruled. It took an Appellate Court judge only a week to find probable cause by Jones for failing to disclose his relationship with Freeman. He resigned.
It requires no courage for bar association leaders to condemn those discreditable officials who donned red ties and made pilgrimages to New York to stand outside the courthouse to mewl and whine that the justice system was targeting the loathsome demagogue, Donald Trump.
To shine a searing light when something goes wrong in the judicial branch of government when no one is paying attention— that’s what protects the integrity of the system.
Kevin Rennie can be reached at kfrennie@yahoo.com
Connecticut
Providence man killed in Connecticut crash | ABC6
![Providence man killed in Connecticut crash | ABC6](https://www.abc6.com/content/uploads/2023/11/l/f/state-police-ct.jpg)
BROOKLYN, Conn. (WLNE) — Connecticut State Police said that a Providence man was killed in a crash that took place in Brooklyn on Friday.
Police said that two cars hit each other at the intersection of Wauregan Road and Gorman Road.
70-year-old Sergio Valera Urena, of Providence, sustained “fatal injuries” on scene.
The other driver, a 22-year-old from Moosup, Connecticut, was transported to the hospital for minor injuries.
The collision is still under investigation.
Connecticut
New York City girl missing since 2021 found in Connecticut
![New York City girl missing since 2021 found in Connecticut](https://assets3.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2023/03/22/d97a0aff-d8bd-45ab-bc89-79aee55b7993/thumbnail/1200x630/e693aeee4ef146d2ce74fe2d915ec3f6/developing-story.png?v=cb1f2643a8816828741cfb3a3fb2d931)
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – A young girl who went missing from New York City nearly three years ago was found in Connecticut Friday.
Authorities say the girl disappeared from her home in East New York, Brooklyn in December, 2021. No details of the circumstances surrounding her disappearance were immediately released.
The U.S. Marshals Violent Fugitive Task Force and Bridgeport Police said they found the girl Friday in Bridgeport. They moved in after receiving a request for assistance from the NYPD earlier this month.
Authorities say the girl, who is now 16, is in good health and is returning to her home with her parents.
A report prepared by the New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services shows that in 2021, 10,184 children went missing in New York, and 93.2% of children under 18 who disappeared were runaways. That same year, there were two stranger abductions, seven acquaintance abductions, and 40 familial abductions.
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